Many a day it kept me bare and busy before I could clear my feet, and make myself as free and independent as I was before. This was the beginning of my misfortunes, but it was but the beginning; year after year I lost and lost, until my little all was as good as three times sold off at the ground; and at last I was so reduced, that I could not say the clothes I wore were my own. "This will never do, thought I; they shall crack well that persuade me to sell at random again.--Accordingly, I thenceforth took good care of all my sales that came to any amount. My rule was, to sell my little things, such as wool, lambs, and fat sheep, worth the money; and not to part with them till I got the price in my hand. This plan I never rued; and people finding how the case stood, I had always plenty of merchants; so that I would recommend it to every man who depends for procuring the means of living on business such as mine. What does it signify to sell your stock at a great price, merely for a boast, if you never get the money for it? It will be long ere that make any one rich or independent! This did all very well, but still I found, on looking over my accounts at the end of the year, that there were a great many items in which I was regularly taken in. My shoemaker charged me half-a-crown more for every pair of shoes than I could have bought them for in a market for ready money; the smith, threepence more for shoeing them. My haberdasher's and tailor's accounts were scandalous. In shirts, stockings, knives, razors, and even in shirt-neck buttons, I found myself taken in to a certain amount. But I was never so astonished, as to find out, by the plain rules of addition and subtraction, assisted now and then by the best of all practical rules--(I mean the one that says, 'if such a thing will bring such a thing, what will such and such a number bring?')--to find, I say, that the losses and profits in small things actually come to more at the long-run, than any casual great slump loss, or profit, that usually chances to a man in the course of business. Wo to the man who is not aware of this! He is labouring for that which will not profit him. By a course of strict economy, I at length not only succeeded in clearing off the debt I had incurred, but saved as much money as stocked the farm of Windlestrae-knowe. That proved a fair bargain; so, when the lease was out, I took Doddysdamms in with it; and now I am, as you see me, the Laird of J--s--y, and farmer of both these besides. My success has been wholly owing to this:--misfortune made me cautious--caution taught me a lesson which is not obvious to every one, namely _the mighty importance of the two right-hand columns in addition_. The two left-hand ones, those of pounds and shillings, every one knows the value of. With a man of any common abilities, those will take care of themselves; but he that neglects the pence and farthings is a goose!"--